Murder case dismissed against suspect in Oakland Uber driver’s killing during robbery

OAKLAND — Months after a judge tossed the murder case against one of two suspects in the killing of a local Uber driver, prosecutors reached a plea agreement that will result in a two-and-a-half-year prison term, court records show.

Major Willis, 21, was initially charged with murdering 52-year-old Kon Woo Fung, who was shot and killed during an attempted robbery in Oakland. Last November, Judge Thomas Reardon agreed with a defense motion and dismissed the murder charge, finding that Willis was not legally liable for the alleged actions of his teenaged co-defendant, who is believed to have fired the fatal shots.

More recently, Willis agreed to plead no contest to attempted carjacking. He is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 19 to 30 months in state prison, court records show.

Willis’ co-defendant, 18-year-old Tristen Bengco, was charged in juvenile court because he was 17 at the time Fung was killed. Prosecutors say that on the morning of July 17, 2022 the two ran up to Fung’s parked vehicle on East 22nd Street, attempted to force him out of his car and that Bengco killed him during the attempt. The pair abandoned the robbery and fled after the shot rang out.

But Willis’ lawyer argued that the shooting was accidental and that Willis was powerless to stop him. The defense conceded that Willis knew Bengco had a firearm that day, which prosecutors say he later admitted to the police.

“Whether Willis was standing next to the shooter Tristen, or a block away, it would have made little difference in stopping an unplanned, impulsive and possibly accidental discharge of Tristen’s gun,” Willis’ lawyer wrote in court filings.

Prosecutors, in their response motion, argued that Willis and Bengco were “on the same page” about how to carry out the robbery, including the use of the gun. After the killing, Willis and Bengco ran away and ended up ditching their car in San Francisco in an attempt to distance themselves from the suspect vehicle. In doing so, they both made a choice not to help Fung as he lay dying of a gunshot wound, prosecutors argued.

“This shows a lack of empathy that rises to literal indifference to human life,” Deputy District Attorney Emily Tienken wrote in the failed response to the defense motion to dismiss.

Willis has been in jail for nearly two years while the case has been pending. With good behavior credits it is unlikely he’ll be in custody for much longer, though a judge still needs to do that arithmetic at his sentencing hearing.